Sports stars today

Sports Stars Today:

A short essay on romancing the past

It is very popular to criticize today’s sports stars. Everyone does it, and it’s so natural. Everywhere you look, it seems you can find unprecedented acts of pigheadedness and greed on the parts of our modern day athletes. You have your OJ Simpson’s, Ray Carruth’s, Ryan Leaf’s, Alexei Yashin’s, etc. Today’s crop of modern day, spoiled-brathletes fairly begs to be massacred in print.

Oh for the days of yore. The days of the noble athlete, competing for love of the game and glory to be won. Competing, as it were, for the fan, for the city he represented. One day, in 1968, a rookie on the St. Louis Blues came into the locker room after a particularly hard defeat, and threw his jersey on the floor in abject disgust at the loss. Barclay Plager, a tough defenseman on that team came over to him, picked up the jersey, and told him,” You don’t EVER throw this jersey on the floor. This emblem is our flag. You fight for it. It is to be honored, in victory and defeat." Where are those athletes who remember the game, for the games sake? Where has he gone, the athlete of yesterday.

Bull.

Unadulterated, ridiculous, myopic bull.

Every generation, every society, thinks that theirs is the best, or worst, depending on what you are talking about. If you want to judge this, go to ANY city ANYWHERE, and ask the locals, "Do all of your people drive like this?" They will glow with pride as they explain how terrible the drivers in their city are. Everywhere, people believe that the universe, and time itself centers on them.

You want to talk about athletes of today as opposed to yesterday, ok. Lets look at it rationally.

Back in the day, the teams all had a reporter traveling with them. He was with the ballclub, and was almost a member of the team. He was heavily influenced by friendships on the team, and on the fact that if he lost access to the club, he might be a copyboy re-writing furniture ads next week. He was a shill for the team, and it took a team of wild horses to drag negative stories out. Not like today, where coverage is intense, and less personal. Todays reporters, in sports, as in politics, are fascinated by the negative stories. They want to report bad things. After all, if it bleeds, it leads.

Is it the modern day athlete’s fault that the sports page reads like the financial section? I grew up in St. Louis in the 60s and 70s, I don’t think I was once made aware of what Bob Gibson, Jim Hart, or Gary Unger made. The news was there to be had, and I assure you, there were disputes of salary.

Sure, there was the flap over Curt Flood, and his appealing to the courts his situation, and lets not forget that the courts saw the light and ballplayers have been allowed to sell their services to the highest bidder ever since. What is wrong, in America, with that? If Alex Rodriguez can get 252 million dollars, why should he play for less? I suppose he could sign for less, and hope the owner put some of the money into cheaper seats, but I wouldn’t count on it. Welders, shoemakers, salesmen, and even journalists sell our work to the highest bidder everyday. We decide to work somewhere after judging conditions, salary, and treatment by employers. Why should being an athlete make you immune to that? It shouldn’t. These people have a very short time, typically to earn, and they should be paid well. As well as they can extort from the system. That 252 million is someone’s money. Why shouldn’t it be A-rods? I never bought a ticket to watch an owner. (Although Mr. Busch, in his day, and Al Davis were worth the price of admission at times.)

"OK" you say, "the modern day athlete is no slave. Let him sell to the highest bidder, but what of loyalty? What of humility? Where is the integrity of the old days? Why must our athletes be such reprobates?" (Actually, none of you speak like that, but I enjoy writing like that. You guys would be more likely to say something like, "Yeah, ok. But why are they such assholes today?")

I miss the integrity of the old days too.

Where are the Ty Cobbs? (Ty once beat a man to death because he was black. He was acquitted, thank God, or he never would have gotten 4000 hits. I don’t imagine his superstar status had anything to do with the court decision, do you?) Where are Dizzy and Daffy Dean?(They once left the team in the middle of a season because ole Diz didn’t think his brother was being paid enough. Forget the fact that he had a contract, and the team was in the middle of a pennant race.) The Paul Hornungs and Alex Karras's?(Both suspended from football for associating with gamblers.) Willie Mays?(Banned from baseball until recently for associating with gamblers.) Sonny Liston?(Beaten to within an inch of his life by St. Louis police and dropped off on the Illinois side, with a warning to never come back. This due to his involvement in local gangster issues.) Bob Gibson?(Bob once broke his leg, and after tiring of fans inquiries, came on the field one day with a sandwich board sign that read, among other things, "In a month or so." No, it doesn’t hurt anymore." etc. Gibson stories are stuff of legend, he was mean, violent, and impossible to get along with. Hell, Gibson recently hit an old woman at a fantasy camp with a pitch because, as he put it, "She was crowding the plate. I have to have one half of it for me." ) Babe Ruth, one of the alltime beloved athletes was reportedly drunk in the clubhouse at times. He sometimes was unable to play because of his condition. He was also asked once whether he felt a little odd, since he made more money than the President of the USA? Babe replied, "I had a better year than him."

Can you imagine what the modern day press would do with these heroes of yesteryear? They would demonize them in ways that would be legend. The fact of the matter is, when you compare what Alex Rodriguez says and does to some of the things said and done by other players, A-Rod is a piker. He is a Sunday School teacher. Hell, Billy Martin and Mickey Mantle wouldn't be seen with a choirboy like him.

Today’s athletes live under the glare of ESPN, CNN, and our general thirst for scandal. We have been led to believe that they are some sort of new breed, today’s athletes, but when you think of it, when is the last time a half dozen guys got together and threw the world series? That hasn't happened with the over-priced, spoiled athlete of today. You have to go back to the noble days of 1918 to find that kind of duplicity.

Another thing. I want to talk about hypocrisy here for a minute. Thank God I didn’t make it as an athlete, in today’s market. At the age of 20, if someone had given me a million dollars and held me in awe, I never would have survived it. If I had been 25 and were given 252 million and the awe of the country, I would have been the most insufferable, obnoxious, worthless piece of crap on the face of the earth. I would have had the Latrell Spreewells of today running from me in fear. Hell, at 20 I was a worthless know it all, and I had NO money or acclaim. How many of you could remain, (This ASSUMES you have the state now, and frankly, I don’t see a hell of a lot of evidence in this world of any of us being humble.) the loving, kind, patient humble selves that you are now in the face of such success at such a tender age? None of us. In short, these guys are performers. Entertainers. They are flukes of nature, and are genius on some physical level. They come with athletic talent, nothing else. Lets adore their abilities, and keep them in perspective. At the same time, don’t over-romanticize the athlete of yesterday. He was no saint. He was a drug addict, drunkard, lout, braggart, murderer, and anything else you can imagine. Being able to hit a curveball means you can hit a curveball. Nothing else.

As to the economics of it, baseball owners STILL refuse to let the players see the books. They STILL wont let the union see evidence of the sad state of affairs the game is supposedly in. I used to think the athlete was destroying the game, but you know what? More people see baseball now than ever. There are more games televised, attended in person, and listened to on the radio than at any time in history. If you want to know the truth, the game is ok. When the owners can’t pay it, they won’t.

People whine about the advantage the large market teams have over the small market teams, like this is something new. Did you ever notice that the Yankees have been the Yankees since forever? They have ALWAYS gotten better players. It is because they are the YANKEES. They play in New York, the center of attention of the globe. Today, they can afford to get the best players, before they got them because they were the most famous team. Nobody used to float over on a raft wanting to play for Milwaukee. They all knew the Yankees, and to a lesser degree, the Cardinals. (The Cardinals had a powerhouse radio station, and their games could be heard all over the south and west, at a time when the Cardinals were the team furthest west and furthest south of any team. They were the original "Americas Team." ) It is no coincidence that back then, the two teams with the most World Series titles were, The Yankees and The Cardinals.

As to dominance, no team today dominates like the Yankees of the 50s did. Look at the record of the Yankees when they had Yogi Berra. In the 12 years between 1947 and 1958, they appeared in 11 World Series. Of those, they won 8. This was before the big salaries, before free agency. The play, "Damn Yankees" wasn’t written recently. It was done several years ago, and it is about a guy who follows a team that is out of the race as soon as the season starts. No new concept there.

Now, you have read this, and you have to see the logic behind it. I know you will close your eyes, shake yourself, and try valiantly to forget the logic herein. You want desperately to think that sport is going to hell in a hand-basket, and that you are witness to it. Go ahead. Keep your myopic vision alive. Sport was a lot better, back in the day. Far purer under the stewardship of the past. Someday though, our grandkids will look back fondly to the memories of the 'high spirited' Brian Cox's, Mike Tysons, and Alan Iversons the same way we look back nostalgically at Conrad Dobler, Muhammad Ali, and Wilt Chamberlain.

Dave